In the packaging arts, and in particular in the commercial packaging art for consumer products, there exists a continual demand for packaging which not only appeals to consumers, but which also provides added value or features to a purchaser of packaging materials. In this regard, manufacturers of consumer products and their packaging vendors have devised various techniques for inclusion of, for example, directly printed graphics, a coupon, a premium, a game piece, a radio frequency identification (“RFID”) component, or a tool for use with an associated product (hereinafter, collectively, an “accessory”) or any number or combination of such elements. Among these techniques is to simply contain the product tube within a box or carton, and provide one or more accessories there within. Obvious drawbacks to these techniques include increased packaging costs and post-consumer packaging waste associated with a box or carton. Another technique that has been employed with limited success for tube containers involves simply attaching the accessory to a wall of the tube container by way of a suitable adhesive. As used here throughout, “tube container”, “product tube”, “tube-like container”, or simply “tube”, are all intended to include well known flexible tube product containers and pouches that may not be easily characterized by a set of standard rectangular or cylindrical profiles. However, other than the aforedescribed adhesive attachment method, no provision has heretofore been made for simply and inexpensively providing an accessory directly with a tube container itself. This problem is complicated by the fact that flexible tube containers typically do not have a uniform circumference, and their walls are subject to deformation in use by squeezing to force product out therefrom. Thus, the known secondary packaging technique of adhering the accessory to the wall of the tube container cannot be satisfactorily utilized, due to exposure to deformation and other attendant problems. Consequently, an end user typically removes the adhered accessory from the wall of the container before use. Once removed, the accessory may become irretrievably separated from the container, or may otherwise be lost.
Therefore, there exists a need for a tube container with an integral accessory panel, that may be simply and inexpensively produced and which overcomes the myriad drawbacks of known primary and secondary packaging methods.